Keeping Silence

“When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” – Revelation 8:1

“The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.” – Habakkuk 2:20

We made sparkle jars over the weekend by filling a glass jar with water, a bit of detergent, a few drops of food coloring, and lots of glitter and sequins. You just shake up the jar and watch the sparkles swirl around before slowing settling on the bottom, an activity the kids found endlessly fascinating.

Sometimes our souls, or our lives, are like those jars, full of swirling sediment which only time can settle. “Just as the physical law of gravity ensures that sediment swirling in a jar of muddy river water will eventually settle and the water will become clear,” writes Ruth Haley Barton, “so the spiritual law of gravity ensures that the chaos of the human soul will settle if it sits still long enough.” We don’t have to do anything but sit quietly in God’s presence, “anything but show up and trust the spiritual law of gravity that says, ‘Be still, and the knowing will come.’”

John describes two things, and only two things, which the seventh seal brings: silence, and time. These are rare commodities in our house right now. Silence is non-existent: there is always someone talking, sometimes everyone talking. There are simultaneous zoom calls, multiple voices shouting in play (for some reason their imaginative play always involves very enthusiastic sounds). And my time is not my own. There’s always the potential of being interrupted to meet needs or handle issues. 

We need now, more than ever, to keep silence. We live noisy lives. And we are used to meeting problems with activity, meeting busyness with more busyness. But there is a kind of truth that can only be declared, a kind of clarity that can only be experienced, through sitting quietly without doing or saying a thing. Our silence is a stopping to acknowledge that God sits in His holy temple. Our silence is an invitation to allow the Holy Spirit to work in and reveal to us what He may. “I believe that silence is the most challenging, the most needed and the least experienced spiritual discipline among evangelical Christians today,” writes Barton. May we not fail to keep our silence, on earth as it is in heaven.

Habakkuk

“Though the fig tree should not blossom,

   nor fruit be on the vines,

the produce of the olive fail

   and the fields yield no food,

the flock be cut off from the fold

   and there be no herd in the stalls,

yet I will rejoice in the Lord;

   I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

God, the Lord, is my strength;

   he makes my feet like the deer’s;

   he makes me tread on my high places.”

- Habakkuk 3:17-19

Habakkuk reads like a journal. Unlike most of the other prophets, he does not address the people of Israel directly. Rather, he records his own thoughts and conversations with God, his personal struggle with whether God can be good amid tragedy and suffering. He lodges his complaints in prayers of lament: first, what are you going to do about the injustice, idolatry, and evil of your people? God replies, I will send Babylon to judge them. Habakkuk complains again: but the evil of Babylon is even worse! God replies, I will eventually destroy Babylon as well.

Then comes a theophany (3:3-15). Habakkuk beholds God, the way the Israelites did at Mt. Sinai after generations of slavery, the way Job did after long discourses on his suffering. There are echoes here of those earlier theophanies, echoes of creation (Habakkuk 3:6, Job 38:4) and exodus (Habakkuk 3:5, 8). The point is, these stories are not just isolated events. They echo, from ancient Job to Moses to pre-exilic Habakkuk, because they are retellings of the one same story, the story of Who God Is and How He Works. And that is a story that never changes, because God is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). He is a God who sees and gives purpose to suffering. Who does not forget us. Who comes with salvation and justice. He is far more powerful and sovereign than we grasp.

It is impossible to behold God and not leave changed. Habakkuk becomes someone who listens and who is willing to wait (3:16). He becomes someone who chooses transcendent joy in even the worst of circumstances. If you were to rewrite these verses, what would they look like? “Though the pandemic last forever, though we never gather in our church building again, though my kids never walk into school; though my work project fails; though the smoke stains the sky… I will take joy in the God of my salvation. He makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.” Where are your high places? When have there been theophanies in your life? What does it look like for you to choose to rejoice?

The Sleeping Tiger

“Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder—no end to the prey!” – Nahum 3:1

“If you were fortunate enough to be born into a family whose ancestors directly benefited from genocide and/or slavery, maybe you think the more you don’t know, the more innocent you can stay, which is a good incentive to not find out, to not look too deep, to walk carefully around the sleeping tiger. Look no further than your last name. Follow it back and you might find your line paved with gold, or beset with traps.” – Tommy Orange, There There

The prophets were people who woke the sleeping tiger. If you want the white-hot truth, look no further. Nahum was someone who looked at Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, with its resplendent palace and impressive city walls, and saw blood. Heaps of corpses, dead bodies of the innocent. What he saw was shame and filth (3:3-5). 

It is not always easy to see. In some sense, if we have the option to see or not, then we by definition are those who need to see the most. Nahum sees the truth behind Nineveh’s gleaming corridors, and the result is a book that is a startling sequel to, and contrast with, the book of Jonah. The repentance of the Ninevites did not last. Half a century after Jonah, the new king of Assyria led a military campaign of bloodshed and cruelty on a scale the world had never seen before. This time, the message of the prophet is not one of repentance, but destruction. And indeed, Nineveh is destroyed in 612 B.C., leading to the end of the Assyrian empire.

But part of what we must see is that Nahum’s vision is God’s vision. Nahum sees as he does because God sees as He does. The first chapter of the book doesn’t even mention Nineveh: he speaks only of God, the God who avenges, who keeps his wrath, who commands the world. “Who can stand before his indignation? Who can endure the heat of his anger? His wrath is poured out like fire” (1:6). This is a God who “will by no means clear the guilty” (1:3). 

We see not from a guilty conscience, not from obligation, not even from well-intentioned peer pressure. We see because we cannot read Jonah without reading Nahum. We see because we love, and are drawn to, and want to become like a God who sees. We grieve because He does. We hold mercy together with justice because Jesus did. He came not only in grace, but in truth. His coming was an act of judgment. “And this is the judgment,” John writes. “The light has come into the world.” To be in Christ is to see as he does, with eyes of flame (Revelation 1:14), through the light that exposes what might be easier left in darkness.

Voyage

from a book of puritan prayers:

O Lord of the oceans,

My little bark sails on a restless sea,

Grant that Jesus may sit at the helm and steer me safely;

Suffer no adverse currents to divert my heavenward course;

Let not my faith be wrecked amid storms and shoals;

Bring me to harbor with flying pennants,

   hull unbreached, cargo unspoiled.

I ask great things,

   expect great things,

   shall receive great things.

I venture on thee wholly, fully,

   my wind, sunshine, anchor, defence.

The voyage is long, the waves high, the storms pitiless,

   but my helm is held steady,

   thy Word secures safe passage,

   thy grace wafts me onward,

   my haven is guaranteed.

This day will bring me nearer home,

Grant me holy consistency in every transaction,

   my peace flowing as a running tide,

   my righteousness as every chasing wave.

Help me to live circumspectly,

   with skill to convert every care into prayer,

Halo my path with gentleness and love,

   smooth every asperity of temper;

   let me not forget how easy it is to occasion grief;

   may I strive to bind up every wound,

      and pour oil on troubled waters.

May the world this day be happier and better because I live.

Let my mast before me be the Saviour’s cross,

   and every oncoming wave the fountain in his side.

Help me, protect me in the moving sea

   until I reach the shore of unceasing praise.

Justice

“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice…?” – Micah 6:8

“But let justice roll down like waters.” – Amos 5:24

About two months ago, I was asked to join a social justice and health equity committee at Stanford. This committee was formed as the result of medical students pushing for concepts of anti-racism and social justice to be integrated into the medical school curriculum. At one of the first meetings, students directly confronted professors about racist and stereotyping content contained in lectures and tests. It was shocking to me to see students being so vulnerable, bold, and feeling empowered enough to engage Deans in the medical school that were 30-40 years older, and had the power potentially to impact their career trajectories.

I reflected on this afterwards and remarked to Esther that we would have never even imagined 15-20 years ago during our training calling out professors for their actions and demanding curriculum reform. But somehow, we are in a moment of history, when calls for social justice are louder than ever. It has been inspiring to hear student members of our committee—those with disabilities, who identify as queer, and those from cultures that been discriminated against—call out those with power and privilege from a place of complacency and comfortability to confront these problems within the curriculum that are traumatizing our students. 

But, I also find myself somewhat uncomfortable with the current predominant justice narrative that all power structures should be overturned so that society subverts the power of dominant groups in favor of those that are oppressed. In this postmodern framework, justice is primarily about those who have been historically without power seeking the authority and allyship to overturn inequitable institutions and assuming power.

As Tim Keller puts it “...power must be mapped through the means of ‘intersectionality.’ The categories are race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity (and sometimes others). If you are white, male, straight, cisgender then you have the highest amount of power. If you are none of these at all, you are the most marginalized and oppressed–and there are numerous categories in the middle. Most importantly, each category toward the powerless end of the spectrum has a greater moral authority and a greater ability to see the way truly things are. Only powerlessness and oppression brings moral high ground and true knowledge. Therefore those with more privilege must not enter into any debate—they have no right or ability to advise the oppressed, blinded as they are by their social location. They simply must give up their power.”

Tim Keller points out that there are several issues with this postmodern framework of social justice, including its logical incoherence, the undermining of our common humanity, and its denial of our common sinfulness. But the two ways I feel that the postmodern framework misses the mark in offering a pathway to biblical justice is 1) it offers a highly self-righteous performative identity and 2) it makes true forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation between groups impossible. 

Keller then goes on to speak about biblical justice and other types of social justice frameworks which you can read about here. But I would like to highlight a quote from Keller that discusses what true justice looks like. It is found in the life and character of Jesus. “When God came to earth in Jesus Christ he came as a poor man, to a family at the bottom of the social order. He experienced torture and death at the hands of religious and government elites using their power unjustly to oppress. So in Jesus we see God laying aside his privilege and power—his ‘glory’—in order to identify with the weak and helpless (Philippians 2:5-8). And yet, through the endurance of violence and human injustice he paid the rightful penalty of humanity’s sin to divine justice (Isaiah 53:5). Then he was raised to even greater honor and also authority to rule (Philippians 2:5:9-11). Jesus takes authority, but only after losing it in service to the weak and helpless.”

The means for achieving justice from a postmodern framework has primarily been through asserting force, protesting for political change, and guilt assignment. All of these have their places for achieving our goal of having an equitable society. But these methods do not ultimately create heart change and inner transformation. Jesus models the way for biblical justice: a humble man who has all power and authority coming to dwell among the poor and uneducated - transforming lives, governments, and culture by modeling humility, compassion, and healing the sick. This is compelling biblical justice that changes not only our behaviors, but our hearts, and makes true forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation between groups possible.

Lion and the Lamb

“I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals. And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” – Revelation 5:4-6

I tend to become task-focused when it comes to teaching my children. When they get frustrated because they can’t understand a concept or carry out a skill, I tend to want to power in there to fix things, to hammer the concept in or push until we get the assignment done. But I often learn the hard way that what my children need first when they come to me with frustrations is compassion. They need me to be gentle. They need me to listen. They need me to lay my own agenda aside so I can see and understand their struggle better.

Someone once wrote of this passage, “John was looking for a Lion—he must have been surprised to see a Lamb.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? John is told, weep no more, for the conquering Lion has come! And yet, when he looks, what he sees is a lamb. The meekest and most helpless of creatures. He was met in his grief and frustration by an image not of power or might, but of weakness.

“Compassion,” Nouwen writes, “is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to places where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken.” In a sense, I cannot teach my children until I first understand where they are. I must go with them into the places of weakness, shame and struggle. I must have compassion, and the only way I can do that is if I have received it from God. The only way I can build and restore my reserves of compassion is to receive and savor the compassion of Jesus, the slain lamb.

In the end, that is what matters. It probably won’t matter ten years from now if my kids learn right now how to spell a word or solve an equation. But it might matter whether or not they see the compassion and love of Jesus in me. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience” (Colossians 3:12). 

The Two Sons in Jonah

“And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” – Jonah 4:11

Reading through the prophets, the book of Jonah feels refreshing, perhaps because, despite being considered a prophetic book, it only has one sentence of actual preaching. The rest is narrative. One thing many commentators have noticed about that narrative is how it correlates with the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. In the first half of the book, Jonah plays the younger son. He openly refuses to obey God’s command to go to Nineveh, running away on a ship going 2,500 miles in the opposite direction. Then in the second half of the book, Jonah plays the elder son. He goes obediently to Nineveh and preaches his one sentence, but then when the people of Nineveh repent, he becomes furious, bitterly resenting God’s mercy.

It’s easy to disparage the younger son and approve of the older one, just as it’s easy to think Jonah learns his lesson when he finally makes his way to Nineveh—but in reality, both are wrong. We reject his love when we disobey in open rebellion. But we also reject his love when we obey in self-righteousness. Both fail to understand the meaning of God’s grace.

Grace is God “appointing” a fish to swallow Jonah when he should have perished in the sea (Jonah 1:17). Grace is the father running out to embrace his youngest son. Grace is God entreating the angry Jonah just as the father goes out to entreat his elder son. Grace is God appointing his son Jesus, who called himself the greater Jonah (Matthew 12:40) and like Jonah, would allow himself to be cast to death for the sake of others, only to rise in three days. But unlike Jonah, Jesus would weep for the city. He would go outside the city, not so he could see its condemnation, but so he could die on a cross for its salvation.

Timothy Keller writes, “Salvation belongs to God alone, to no one else. If someone is saved, it is wholly God’s doing. It is not a matter of God saving you partly and you saving yourself partly. No. God saves us. We do not and cannot save ourselves. That’s the gospel.” Our disobedience does not bar us from salvation. Nor can our own righteousness earn it. It is entirely God’s gift to us. 

Both stories end in mid-conversation. At the end of Jonah, God asks, “should I not pity Nineveh?” At the end of the parable, the father tells the elder son, “all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate…” But we don’t hear the response that God or the father receives. The stories stop suddenly, on a cliffhanger—as if the question is coming at us, too. As if God is waiting, too, for our response. Do you understand what grace means? Will you receive it? 

The White Stone

“To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.” – Revelation 2:17

I’m sure everyone who has a kid going through distance learning this week has figured out the importance of having the right zoom link. You can have everything set up and ready, but if the zoom link isn’t correct, or you don’t have the required profile name, or something doesn’t authenticate, then none of it matters. In the old days, all you had to do was get your kid to the right classroom door; now, you need the right kind of ticket to get in, and there’s nothing quite like the frustration of working out tech difficulties that are keeping you from where you need to be.

The white stone was that kind of ticket. In the ancient near east, white stones were used as entrance tickets to plays and banquets, upon which names would often be inscribed. They were also how judges would declare their votes: they would drop into an urn a white pebble for acquittal, or a black one for a guilty verdict. The white stone could also be a reference to the stones on the breastplate of the high priest, either the twelve precious stones that represented the tribes of Israel (Exodus 28:17), or the Urim and Thummim set over the priest’s heart to represent judgment (Exodus 28:30).

Regardless, such a stone was a token of favor in the setting of a judgment of some kind—an assessment of admittance, innocence, or holiness. It was symbolic of remembrance, not unlike the manna (another small, stone-crystal-like object) hidden within the ark of the covenant, with which it is paired here. It was personalized, all the more here with its mysterious new name.

And it was something you could hold. For some reason, in this increasingly virtual world we’re inhabiting, that seems significant. The word used for “stone” here refers to a small stone, worn smooth by water: a polished pebble you could rub in your hand. White is the color of purity and victory. One day, we will be able to hold in our hands the ticket into the life we long for, the symbol of the righteousness and admission won on our behalf by Christ, the evidence that He has never forgotten us. We will hold in our hands a new name, for our eyes only, which He will give us. What an intimate, wondrous, and victorious thing that will be.

Prosperity

“For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself… and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.” – Revelation 3:17-18

“Woe to those who lie at ease in Zion.” – Amos 6:1

We are now blowing through the major and minor prophets, books for which pausing to grasp historical context can be helpful. Amos lived during the reigns of Uzziah and Jeroboam, a period during which Israel experienced unparalleled wealth and prosperity. Assyria appeared to be no threat. The Israelites took these to be signs that they were safe from the judgment of God, despite their breaking of God’s covenant. Their wealth had been accrued at the expense of the poor, and their worship of God amounted to no more than pagan-like manipulations for their own ends. It was Amos’s rather unpleasant task to inform them that their prosperity was a mirage: God’s judgment was still coming. Indeed, less than a century later, Assyria exploded into an unexpected final century of greatness during which they vanquished the entire kingdom of Israel. 

Jesus has eerily similar words for the church in Laodicea. Laodicea was a wealthy city, known for its luxurious black wool, and held a leading medical center that specialized in eye treatments. Yet these very areas of perceived self-sufficiency were where they were most lacking. You need gold, clothing, and eye salve from me, Jesus says, to be truly rich and free of shame, to truly see. Here I am, knocking: repent.

We all see our need for God in areas of struggle, but how aware are you of your need for repentance in areas of prosperity? Prosperity has a dangerous tendency to make us lukewarm towards God, because it obscures our need for him, it feeds our pride. We don’t deny him, but neither do we whole-heartedly follow him. But God sees through even the most pleasant circumstances and shiniest accolades, to the true condition of our hearts. He sees whether we love his law or lie to ourselves (Amos 2:4), whether we love good, hate evil, and establish justice (Amos 5:15). “He declares to man what is his thought” (Amos 4:13)—and it is this God that says, I will spit what is lukewarm out of my mouth. I would rather you be cold or hot. “Return to me… return to me… return to me… return to me” (Amos 4:8-11). May we see our hearts as God does, especially during times of outward wealth and success, and hear his call to repentance. 

Grief and Joy

“My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord!” – Psalm 130:6-7

Today was our first day of school. As with many landmarks during this time, it felt like a mix of grief and joy. It’s fantastic to be have freedom from finding school parking or hauling school gear, to be able to serve fresh snacks and meals. It’s a real gift to be so closely involved now in what my children are learning, to better be able to incorporate home lessons throughout the day. But the whole thing felt sad too. It’s sad to see kids staring into screens for hours a day. Knowing it was coming is one thing; seeing it happen is another. This is not how it’s meant to be.

There is consolation, I think, in how the Bible doesn’t glance over these things. Doesn’t jump to some fix or analysis, but tarries in the places where grief and joy mingle together. My soul waits like the watchmen wait. You don’t set watchmen on the walls unless there is potential for trouble. Their very existence is an acknowledgment that all in the world is not as it is supposed to be. They wait in the dark, through the night. And yet it is in that place that the psalmist speaks of hope and steadfast love. The arrival of the dawn, the end of their shift, is sure, and that is how we wait: we look, and we hope, but never in vain, for there will come the “morning star” (Revelation 2:28).

McKelvey writes, “You are the sovereign of my sorrow.” Sometimes, that is all I can see, the loss and wrongness in how we are living. But sometimes too in that place the joys and gifts pierce through, experiences and perspectives and changes that never would have happened if my life had not been so radically reframed the way this time has forced it to be. “You are the sovereign of my sorrow. You apprehend a wider sweep with wiser eyes than mine. My history bears the fingerprints of grace… you remain at work.” Sadness and grace, grief and joy, and in that place, God remains at work. Hope in the Lord.

A Liturgy for First Waking

from Every Moment Holy, by Douglas McKelvey:

I am not the captain of my own destiny,

nor even of this new day, and so

I renounce anew all claim

to my own life and desires.

I am only yours, O Lord.

Lead me by your mercies through these hours,

that I might spend them well,

not in harried pursuit of my own agendas,

but rather in good service to you.

Teach me to shepherd the small duties

of this day with great love,

tending faithfully those tasks

you place within my care

and tending with patience and

kindness the needs and hearts of

those people you place within my reach.

Nothing is too hard for you, Lord Christ.

I deposit now all confidence in you

that whatever these waking hours bring,

my foundations will not be shaken.

At day’s end I will lay me down again to sleep

knowing that my best hope is well kept in you.

In all things your grace will sustain me.

Bid me follow, and I will follow.

Amen.